Issue #1: How We Became An Award-Winning Studio
- Maximus Richardson
- Nov 9, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 2
Currently, we've launched over 40 experiences, with over 20 of them available to play right now, along with recieving $220,000 in award winnings across four worlds. But how did we get here? In this article, we'll dive into how we got where we are now.
Adventuring Into VR
Our first experience in VR was the PlayStation VR in 2018, but we didn't get fully invested in VR until we purchased a Meta Quest 2 for Christmas 2022 for the fitness app Supernatural. We liked it so much, we ended up with 5 Quest 2s, and explored through different games like Zenith: The Last City and A Township Tale, but stumbled upon what was Facebook Horizon at the time in April 2022 after Christian wanted to learn VR game development and saw it was a good place to do so.
Baby Steps
When we first entered Horizon, we didn't even know you could enter others' worlds. We built our first few experiences using Primitive Shapes and CodeBlocks, the only tools available at the time.
Our studio was officially founded on May 1, 2022, which is when we started building our very first experiences Here are some screenshots of the first world we ever created, "first world"!
First Year
After expirementing with build mode, we decided to start building our first published experience: S'mores Summer Camp. It was a summer camp full of firepits, minigames, and hangout spots.
The best part? S'mores toss!
We even had marshmallow cornhole!
One of the things we leanred that has helped us a lot is working with the platform's capacity limitations. You could only have 3,000 shapes, and only a certain amount of different ones, so working with those helped us learn more flexibility.
This world has since been unpublished and replaced with higher-quality experiences, but this was a cornerstone in our development journey.
10 Worlds In 2 Months
Through May and July 2022, we published our first 10 worlds;
S'mores Summer Camp: We've already explained this one!
Kawaii's Creamery: This is where the Kawaii name came from - we were using it as a pun for Ice Creamery! It launched on May 13, 2022.
Kawaii's Balloon Saloon: A saloon shootout with targets, horse racing, and even a hangout in the main area.
Kawaii's Urgent Care: This world is still published today! It looks very different today than it did at launch, but we were learning new things, like snapping and color textures, with every new world.
Kawaii's Adoption Center: This world was our fifth launch, at the end of May 2022, but it was reimagined with custom models and textures at the end of 2024. It was the predecessor to Kawaii's Rainbow Daycare.
Kawaii's Grocery: The Grocery has been one of our most successful worlds since it launched at the beginning of June 2022, but didn't start taking off until it was reimagined with custom models in July 2024 and has been updated 7 times since its launch. It's a grocery roleplay where you can check out customers, purchase groceries, and even be a personal shopper for online orders.
Kawaii's Mining Adventure: The Mining Adventure was an adventure world where you would bring a headlamp and a pickaxe, then go down into the caves to collect ore and level up to get more cash and get better pickaxes, to mine better ores, and so on.
Kawaii's Giant Donuts: A roleplay donut shop similar to the Grocery where you can serve donuts, coffee, donut holes and specialty donuts! Don't forget to ride on the teacup merry-go-round and the bouncy donuts. Additionally, in June 2023, we changed Kawaii's Giant Donuts to the Pride Party update, including rainbow wings, rainbow decorations, and even a Progress Pride flag.
Kawaii's Honey Hunt: A tycoon world where, well, I'll put the story as it said in-world! "Spring is here, but the bees of Huney Hunt Hive are not waking up! You Must wake them by feeding them golden honey, made from the last of the magical flowers. Wake the Royal Bee, and they will help you restore the full power of Kawaii's magic! Once you have woken a bee, they can be summoned at any time to help you on your journey to restore the magic of Kawaii!"
Fate Of The Future PvP: While this world was rebranded to Kawaii's Battle Royale before it was vaulted, it was a battle between two teams on an elevated terrain to see which team could get the most eliminations. It was 6v6, and was enjoyed by many members of the Horizon community.
Gaining Traction
In September 2022, right before we launched our 19th world, Kawaii's Spooky Donuts, we received our invitation to the Meta Horizon Creator Program.
After hitting the earnings cap on our first month, we used the special tools and funding that came with the program's benefits to boost our creations. But in around April of 2023, after launching our 33rd world - Kawaii's Fire Station - we stopped building, for reasons inside and outside Horizon. We didn't go in headset for an extended period of time. A few months later, though, after talking about past Disney trips, we had an idea in our mind. Drawing inspiration from Toy Story Mayhem, we started Kawaii's Midway Mayhem - our 34th world - and it launched in August.
After 4 months of no new worlds, we'd finally launched one. And it showed. Our next world was Kawaii's Cooks Ahoy (which has since been vaulted), our first Custom Model experience. It was a tycoon where you cooked meals using different ingredients to earn Doubloons and unlock new weapons for the Dueling Dunes, a free-for-all arena inside the world, along with taking the parkour along the islands to gather Treasure.
Custom Models
After creating our final Primitive Shapes world, Kawaii's Rainbow Daycare (which has since been redone), we moved on to using only Custom Models and TypeScript - which has majorly improved the quality of our worlds. But, after launching our 37th world, Werewolf Tag at Wolfsbane Village, since it had taken a long time for these new worlds, we went back on break. We didn't launch anything for eight months, and didn't launch a new world for eleven. We spent that time working on things outside of headset, taking Disney trips, and playing ARK (speaking of ARK, something new is coming soon from our team!). But then, we launched our first world of the year in October 2024 - five months in the making - Playroom Tower Defense.
It's a tower defense game where you defended the Cardboard Keep from angry toys trying to destroy it.
Then, we went on to create a holiday update for the Daycare, our revision to the Adoption Center, and our first award-winning game, Zomburgerz: Crypt Cookout, which won $45,000 in the first Meta Horizon Creator Competition.
And we didn't stop there - at the beginning of 2025, we launched our 4th world, Zombie Opz: Neon Apocalypse, a shooter game where you have to defeat endless waves of zombies, a complete redo of Circle Kawaii, Gas & Go Garage, our first virtual clothing outlet - Kawaii Style - and more recently, our line of merge games, including Merge Kitties, Merge Donuts, Merge Froggies, Merge Defense, and another one on the way.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading! We're so excited to show you what comes next in 2026, our fourth year in game development.
Check out our full success story on Meta For Developers.
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